The Art of Courtly Love
Mary of Burgundy

Mary of Burgundy Reads

Mary of Burgundy appears immersed in a particular hour in 1477, realizing in the theatre of her mind the presence of  Mary. Her intercessor, incarnate in imagination, offers solace.

Mary’s father, Charles the Bold, has died, leaving her at twenty the Duchess of Burgundy. Louis XI of France threatening her inheritance, offers the reconciliation of marriage, but she will prefer Maximilian of Austria, the future Holy Roman Emperor (1493).

Her reading begins with a flourished O, perhaps the beginning of a poem she would particularly cherish at this pressing moment: Obsecro te  (I beseech thee) –
 

Come and hasten to my aid and counsel,
in all my prayers and requests,
in all my difficulties and necessities,
and in all those things that I may do,
may say, or may think, in every day, hour,
and moment of my life. And obtain for me,
thy servant, from thy beloved Son
a full measure filled with all mercy and consolation,
with all counsel, with all aid and help,
with all blessing and holiness,
with all salvation, peace and prosperity,
with all joy and eagerness.
Obtain also an abundance of all good things,
spiritual and bodily, and the grace of the Holy Spirit
so he may set all things in good order for me,
guard my soul, guide my body, uplift my senses,
control my ways, approve my actions,
perfect my wishes and desires, instill holy thoughts, forgive my past evils, emend those of the present
and temper those in the future,
and grant me an honest and honorable life.
 

Mary’s reading, a spiritual exercise, depends for effect on her active participation in specific settings, in actualizing a real moment.

Thomas Becket Approaches Mary

Her prayer follows the inspiration of a predecessor, Thomas Becket, also actualizing a particular moment. Becket, as chancellor of England (1155–62), had furthered the policies of Henry II of England. But as archbishop of Canterbury (1162–70) he acted independently, refusing to cede church prerogatives to the monarch. A devote of Mary, he composed the Obsecro te that now inspires Mary.

A flourished capital recalls in black the death Becket will face with Mary’s support, as well as the death of Mary’s father, Charles the Bold. Thomas Becket turns from his former king to Mary, the object of his present and enduring veneration. Surely Mary of Burgundy, herself oppressed with suitors, enjoys the power of Mary to supplant Henry as the object of Becket’s devotion.

Mary’s Nature and Revelation

Mary may revive spirits through springtime flowers. Variety appears not just in diversity of shapes, colors, sizes, but also in every individual of a common species. The least flower, the tiniest of moths, all of creation, lives with distinction.

Mary recognizes also in the shortening days of autumn the character of death, the passage of all mortals. Each skull she notes, carries the distinctive impressions of individual experience.

Mary no doubt appreciates in scallop shells the situations of souls seeking the guidance of James, patron saint of pilgrims. Each shell, lovingly individuated, reminds her of the animate being now removed to joy or sorrow. Presently, perhaps, she has in mind the page of nature and of revelation from which flows her Obsecro te. Within the blue circle of Mary’s sky, Light warms and shapes flowering sprays. Each violet, clothed in blue, dew-fed, reaches upward and outward. Among such blues, animate moths and dragon-fly rest for future flight. Mary shares with William Blake the energy and focus

To see a world in a grain of sand,
and heaven in a wild flower,
hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
and eternity in an hour.

Mary  Builds Chartres

Sunlight radiating from blue skies— Mary’s blue robe, a relic brought to Chartres in France by crusaders returning from  Jerusalem. Suppliants approaching her robe, like suppliants looking up to the blue cloak of heavens, sought her presence, her light. In the presence of her robe, her spirit emanated, and miracles occurred.

When fire destroyed her Romanesque church in 1194, stone crumbled and metal melted, but her robe survived intact. Her voice was heard: build a suitable home. The present Chartres Cathedral, consecrated in 1260, established the structures and energies which would populate Europe with Notre Dames, unprecedented communal centers, a few score years. Pointed, ribbed vaulting buttressed outside enabled vertical heights unimagined previously, with openings for light-radiating rose windows and curtain walls depicting Mary’s virtues.

Wide participation in the construction brought together communities, kings and commoners, men and women, elders and youth. Stories abound. Kings and commoners side-by-side pull stone-carts to rising walls. Ben Shahn invites continuing participation —

. . . an itinerant wanderer traveling over country roads in thirteenth-century France who comes across a man exhaustedly pushing a wheelbarrow full of rubble. He asks what the man is doing. ‘God only knows. I push these damn stones around from sunup to sundown, and in return, they pay me barely enough to keep a roof over my head.’

“Farther down the road, the traveler meets another man, just as exhausted, pushing another filled barrow. In reply to the same question, the second man says, ‘I was out of work for along time. My wife and children were starving. Now I have this. It’s killing, but I’m grateful for it all the same.”

“Just before nightfall, the traveler meets a third exploited stone-hauler. When asked what he is doing, the fellow replies, ‘I’m building Chartres Cathedral.’”

Within one-hundred years Notre Dame spreads through the power of Mary gothic structures and gothic practices throughout Europe.

Mary Brings Light

Those seeking Mary’s intercession at Chartres literally stand in heavenly light. Every hour of every day varies Mary’s presence: circumstances, –  weather, politics, economics, moods – shift and flow. Life generating sunlight, infinitely inflected with Mary‘s intercessions, move each and every suppliant. At vespers (evening), approaching the Western portal, the setting sun animates the judgment day arching the doorway, anticipating two approaching worlds, the illuminations of heaven, the shadings of hell. Within, eastward, altar candles anticipate morning sunrise. At transept northern exposure offsets temperate South rose, realizing under the protective wall the temperate garden which shelters all creatures.

What drives such activity? Not, presumably, the technical discovery of vaulting, flying buttresses, illuminated glass. More, the spirit of Mary, presumably a new influence manifesting new circumstances and desires throughout Europe in the 12^th century.

The Art of Courtly Love

In 1137, Eleanor succeeded her father William X, as ruler of Aquitane, and married (by prearrangement of her father) Louis VII of France. She joined Louis on the second crusade, and exercised considerable influence in arts as well as politics at Champagne. At Poitiers, she established courtly life and manners praised by troubadours of the time. Her daughter Marie, Countess of Champagne, inspired The Art of Courtly Love (Liber de arte honeste amandi et reprobatione inhonesti amoris), written about 1185 by her chaplain André. Divorced from Louis in 1152, she married Henry Plantagenet, 12 years her junior. Her children by both marriages came to occupy a significant proportion of European thrones. Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde assumes the conventions and psychology implicit in the Art of Courtly Love.

The Art of Courtly Love